Warrior Goddess
by White Aster
Summary: A senseless killing, the hand of the Allspark, and a 2010 Dodge Challenger.    AU, bot!Mikaela, warning for...very transient character death?
1. Chapter 1

She hadn't even seen it coming. That was what she would always remember: that it had all happened so fast.

She'd stopped back into the shop to do paperwork, of all things. Sam had tried to coax her into coming home with him, but she wasn't sure if his heart was in it, and she had some estimates to get out first thing the next day, and taxes were going to be due in a week or so, and she had about a foot and a half of paperwork still sitting on her desk, and there was no way she could find time to work on it all during the day. Luckily, she was too busy actually fixing cars then, and ever since her dad had died, well...it'd all been hers. Shop and business and money and paperwork and taxes and lingering grief and all.

Still, she'd been okay. Not great and certainly not happy to be spending her evening with a beer and tax instructions rather than her man, but still. Not bad.

She'd gone in through the side door to the garage, shutting and locking it behind her. It wasn't the best neighborhood after dark, after all. She'd turned and started walking toward the office, weaving around the Challenger that Mr. Thatcher'd be picking up in the morning in the dark.

Later, she'd find out that the thieves had come in through the office and had already emptied the till and grabbed the shotgun she kept there for self-defense. Later, she'd realize that they'd found the safe under the workbench and broken it open, shoving the money into their pockets and leaving everything that didn't look valuable strewn across the garage floor. Later, she'd learn that they'd been spooked by her coming in and hid behind the Challenger.

Later, she'd learn that she'd been walking right toward one of them in the dark, when he, strung out and shaking, had shot her with two barrels of buckshot at point-blank range in the chest.

She'd jumped, at the noise more than anything. She'd tried to gasp and couldn't catch her breath. In the dark, she'd been confused more than anything, seeing nothing but dark shapes moving. A wave of vertigo swept over her, and she'd barely felt her knees, then the rest of her hit the floor.

Later, she'd find out that she had all but fallen on the canister with the Allspark in it, from where it'd rolled after being tossed on the floor. She hadn't felt it.

She hadn't felt much of anything, other than surprise. She hadn't even had time to hurt before everything went black.

INITIAL BOOT SEQUENCE: INITIATED OS: ONLINE MEMORY CORE: BOOTED...99.99995% FREE.  
>SYSTEMS CHECK...PRIMARY...SECONDARY: ...ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL SENSOR CHECK...PRIMARY...SECONDARY...TERTIARY: ...ALL SENSORS FUNCTIONAL...<br>AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: ENERGON LEVELS: 0.005%  
>AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: BOOTING IN POWERSAVE MODE<p>

She woke to darkness and confusion. Confusion, first. Where was she? What was going on? Why was it dark...and quiet? What...why couldn't she isee/i?

EXTERNAL SENSORS ACTIVATED

"What the HELL?"

QUERY UNRECOGNIZED REPEAT QUERY Y/N?

"The fu-CHRIST!"

Suddenly, like a punch of information to the gut, she could see. She could see _everything_. She knew the ambient temperature, humidity, background radiation, and chemical composition of the air around her. She knew the ambient light levels, the shape of the room and everything in it. She detected electromagnetic waves flying all around her, everything from buzzing gamma and x-rays to UV to infrared and on into slow, lazy radio waves. She concentrated on one of them for a moment and got an earful of rapid-fire Spanish and a cheery jingle.

"Enough, enough, _fuck_!"

EXTERNAL SENSORS DEACTIVATED

"NO! Just...dial it back!"

EXTERNAL EM SENSORS ACTIVATED. SENSITIVITY: 60%

She looked around, cautiously, and quickly realized a few things through the confusion. First, she was in the garage. Second, she could see in 360 degrees. Third, her body was slumped on the floor, seeping the last of its heat into the concrete. Her face looked surprised, her hair a mess.

Her body. Her body that was over _there_ while she was over _here_.

She stared at herself for a good long moment, trying to parse all of this. All right, she thought. I'm dead. I'm dead? Am I a ghost or something?

SYSTEMS CHECK: ... ... ...ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL

"What does that _mean_?"

A long list flowed across her mind's eye, the knowledge falling into her mind in what should have been a blinding avalanche. There were tens of thousands of status reports, and she vaguely thought that there was no way she'd understand or remember them all, but she didn't have any trouble at all. She read them and started to understand.

She had 360 degree vision because she had EM sensors situated in all directions. She had a length of 197.7 inches, a width of 75.7 inches, an interior volume of 93.9 cubic feet (and she sensed a quick calculation being done in the back of her mind, as those dimensions were translated from some other units). She had a wheelbase of 116 inches.

She had a _wheelbase_. She had _transformation circuits_. She made the mistake of thinking too hard about those and felt parts she didn't even know she had starting to shift and whirl and reassemble and she quickly thought nonononononononoABORT until everything settled back down on its...her...wheels.

She was a 2010 Infernal Red Crystal Dodge Challenger. This, she thought, was the most bizarre self-image issue she'd _ever_ had, and that was saying something.

Vaguely, she realized that she should probably be more concerned about all of this. Worried? Upset? Angry? Something? Could mechs (and she was a MECH or stuck in a mech or...a MECH!) be in shock?

SYSTEMS CHECK: ...

"Oh, shut up."

SYSTEMS CHECK: ABORTED

The garage was very quiet. Something in her dead body shifted.

Oh god, she needed to get out of here. Away from...that. She was confused. She was sure she was missing something. She felt oddly weak. She needed help.

That last brought up an image of Sam, of Bee, of Optimus, of _Ratchet_. YES. The Autobots. The Autobots would know what to do. She had to go to them.

She found the right command and, determined not to think too hard about it, turned over her engine. Her engine sounded good, if she did say so herself. She released her brakes, felt herself roll a bit, then applied them again. It wasn't too hard, she thought. Just like getting to know a new car from the driver's seat. With...a much better view around her. Right. No problem.

Her thinking was getting...odd. Vague. She had to get out of the garage. She had to get to the 'Bots.

...the garage door was down.

She didn't really want to ram through it, though she was pretty sure she could. That would make noise, and though this was a pretty deserted block at night, and though everyone seemed to have ignored the SHOTGUN BLAST, she didn't want to draw attention to herself. God, what would she do if someone came? Say oh, don't worry about that body on the floor, I'm not using it anymore?

She reined in her strangely scattered thoughts. (Was something wrong? AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: ENERGON LEVELS: 0.004% Oh.)

She needed to get out of the garage. She couldn't hit the button in this form, and she wasn't going to try to transform in here. She wouldn't fit. Her senses zeroed in on the door controls, and the analysis her sensors spat back out made her want to slap herself.

INITIATE LONGWAVE EM EMISSION: VARIABLE FREQUENCY

Halfway through the screech of radiowaves, the door started sliding up on its tracks. She felt like weeping with relief.

Yes, yes, yes, she thought, as she backed, oh so carefully, out, turning her wheels to align herself on the street. It...wasn't too hard. If she didn't think about it too hard. And she was finding it hard to think about anything too hard.

She started rolling down the street, slowly, carefully. She got to an intersection and paused. Which way? Where...where was she going? To the Autobots, yes, but how to get there?

She should know this, she thought. She _should_. Why didn't she? She stuffed down the panic at that thought, searching her memory. Which way was safety and friends?

She turned right. Then right again at the next intersection. Then forward, to a light. She took in the color of it, knowing that it meant something. Something about right and wrong, but she couldn't remember which was which. The cars streaming in front of her through the intersection had a green light. She had a red one. Green must mean permission to go. She waited until the cars stopped and her light turned green. She turned left.

Driving around all the other cars was completely nervewracking. There were so many of them, and they were moving so fast, and she knew there were irules/i to this, to moving on the streets like this, but she couldn't _remember_, and she was terrified of hurting someone. She was very aware of her width, her mass, her momentum. She settled for doing what everyone else seemed to be doing, and eventually her internal safety compass told her to head north, then east, through the maze of streets and buildings. She knew where to go, knew each turning when she saw it, though she couldn't picture it beforehand in her mind.

AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: ENERGON LEVELS: 0.002%

She was very close. She knew it. She made one last turn, heading down a long, dusty road. There was a gate in the way, and men guarding it. That was all right, she thought. She expected them to be there. They would...they would be all right. She rolled up to the gate and stopped, waiting. That was what she was supposed to do here: wait.

Something was wrong. Not with the gate. With her. She...should know more than this. She really should, she thought. Why couldn't she think more than two steps ahead?

One of the men in the gatehouse looked over at her, blinking in surprise. She didn't quite understand why, though she knew she should, _dammit_. "Uh," he said. "ID?"

"I'm...Mikaela. I need...I need to see Ratchet. Or Bee. Or Optimus. Ironhide. Lennox. _Sam_. Anyone...really."

The man kept his eyes on her as he spoke urgently into the radio on his shoulder. ("We've got one UNBE at Gate 1, code yellow, request hard backup..." her sensors picked out of the air.) Other sensors picked up the speeding of his pulse, the increase in his respiration. He was afraid of her. She almost laughed. She felt like she could barely keep air in her tires, she was so tired.

More men came, 53 seconds later, jogging up with weapons and surrounding her. They were frightened of her, too, hearts thumping. She heard engines starting up, somewhere ahead, moving toward her. That...that was good, right? She thought she recognized the tune of those engines.

She was really, really tired. She just wanted...to...

AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: ENERGON LEVELS: 0.001%  
>AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: POWER SAFETY SHUTDOWN IMMINENT<p>

She wasn't aware she'd shut off her EM sensors until the gate started opening, the sound almost drowned out by the roar of three engines and more behind. She onlined them again to see the wonderful, wonderful sight of Ironhide, followed by Optimus and Ratchet heading for her. They transformed right before the gate, the earth shaking beneath her tires as their feet came down on the pavement. Ironhide had his weapons up, charged, the whine of his capacitors registering to her sluggish sensors as a possible danger. Her system threw up a flurry of warnings that she batted down. "Iron...hide..."

AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: POWER SAFETY SHUTDOWN IMMINENT

"That's my name. Stay right where you are, and state your designation," Ironhide growled, his cannon not moving from her.

AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: POWER SAFETY SHUTDOWN IMMINENT

"Help. I'm..." She wanted to reach out to him, to Optimus, who was right behind him, to Ratchet, who was scanning her, her failing systems told her, even as they spoke. That desire manifested in what was probably supposed to be one hand transforming from her undercarriage. She couldn't quite make it, her mass just shifting sluggishly, unbalancing her, making her front right side dip and Ironhide's cannon start to glow.

"FREEZE."

"I'm...Mikaelaaaa..."

AUTONOMIC SYSTEMS WARNING: POWER SAFETY SHUTDOWN INITIATED

Everything went black. Again.


	2. Waking

It had been a long time since Ratchet had had cause to doubt his own sensors. However, his initial scan of their mystery visitor made him pause, scan again, read the results twice, run a scan diagnostic, then scan _again_...

"Ironhide?" Optimus said behind him.

"Scanning... No explosives or hidden weapons." Ironhide reluctantly powered down his cannons. "No weapons at all that I can see. He was running silent, though. Not so much as a background hum on his comms."

"Ratchet?"

"Maybe his comms are down," Ratchet murmured. He read his scans _again_, then said, "I have no idea, Optimus. He's pinging back with an ID key, not a designation. He's got a Cybertronian frame, but made out of human-made components. Very lightly armored, and-again-Earth metals only. No weapons, and if his comm's running silent, then he's not talking to anyone, as he doesn't have a cell or wireless card."

"...Sir?" one of the mystery 'bot's circle of guards said, still covering the car with his weapon.

Optimus looked at Ironhide, who said dryly, "He won't blow up. If he's a Decepticon trap, he's not that obvious of one."

Ratchet spread his hands. "Well, he can't do anything like this. He's got about a sensor check's worth of energon in him, probably has since he turned off the main road. Might as well bring him in. I'll do a full systems scan-yes, Ironhide, I'll code check him-before waking him back up."

Optimus nodded. "Agreed."

Ironhide sighed. "Fine." He gestured the humans out of the way. "At ease, men. Give me room." The humans backed off, and Ironhide picked up the mystery mech carefully, balancing the car between hand and shoulder thoughtfully. Two frames creaked in the still evening air, and Ratchet was almost too distracted by the puzzle the mech represented to aim a ::Sounding rusty there, old warrior:: at Ironhide, along with a teasing reminder about his next maintenance appointment.

Ironhide's reply was a familiar growled ::Not that rusty, sparkling.:: Aloud, Ironhide muttered as he shifted the weight of his burden and headed towards the building Ratchet was using as a med bay, "Fairly dense. He won't be a lightweight, whoever he is."

::One of our special ops agents?:: Optimus suggested, even as he stayed physically behind to talk to the guards. ::Running silent, perhaps?::

::Maybe,:: Ironhide replied. ::We do have some unaccounted for. I guess we could have missed him, if he came down somewhere on the other side of the planet.::

::Doesn't explain why he's not much more than steel and aluminum.:: Ratchet pointed out. ::No Cybertronian alloys at all.::

::...Earth repaired?:: Ironhide's query ended with the codeglyph for "faint doubt", though.

::_No_ Cybertronian alloys at _all_.:: Ratchet pointed out. ::His _spark cage_ is made of _steel_.::

Ironhide turned to look at him. ::Impossible. Unless...Primus help us...the humans found a way to put sparks in human-made frames? But where would they get the spark?::

Optimus' thoughtful noise broke across their chatter. ::Hmm. He...or perhaps she...did say she was Mikaela, correct?::

Ironhide snorted. ::Had to be lying. Or delusional. Honestly, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Perhaps the words weren't connected, and he was just repeating something he'd heard?::

Optimus was silent for a long moment, a glyph for "searching, please wait for reply" trailing over the comm. ::I do not see anything relevant in a preliminary search of the Matrix's memories. However, Mikaela isn't answering her phone.:: He switched to a broader, more heavily-encrypted channel. ::Bumblebee, report.::

Bumblebee's response was immediate, heavily-sprinkled with shorthand codes and glyphs for complete attention and mild curiousity. Everyone used such shorthand to some degree to indicate nuance, but Bumblebee was particularly bad about it. It was a habit that he'd acquired when his vocalizer had been broken: the tendency to visual communication had carried over into his comm habits. Ratchet suspected that the amount of time Bumblebee spent around the Internet and its "emoticons" had not helped. ::All clear, Optimus,:: Bumblebee reported. ::I'm at the Witwicky's. Sam is inside. We got back about an hour ago from a movie with Mikaela. Something wrong?::

::Perhaps. Mikaela was with you tonight? When did you last see her?::

::103 minutes ago. She left the theater on her bike. She said she needed to go back into the shop.::

::Verify her location, personally. We have an unidentified Cybertronian visitor at the base who mentioned her name before falling into stasis. Approach with caution.::

::Is she in danger, sir?:: Bumblebee's reply was punctuated with glyphs for worry and concern. Mikaela had impressed many of them with her courage and curiousity, but she and Sam were good friends with Bumblebee. Sam's and Bumblebee's extended absences to Washington DC to attend to their ambassadorial duties had altered the humans' relationship in some way, but the friendship remained.

::Unknown,:: Optimus replied. ::But do not bring Sam with you, just in case.::

::Yes, sir.::

::Ratchet, keep us all apprised on this frequency.::

::Of course,:: Ratchet said, as he and Ironhide entered their makeshift med bay.

"You want him on the table like this?" Ironhide gestured to the car with his free hand.

Ratchet frowned as the logistics of this. He brought up the physical scan he'd done a few minutes ago. "His ports aren't terribly accessible in that form. Let me take a look..."

Said ports were, indeed, tucked in the mech's undercarriage, past the struts and bulk of transformed arms and legs. Ratchet was fairly sure a data cable could be woven through, but he couldn't get his fingers close enough to attach it. He vented in frustration, then, as a thought occurred to him, gestured for Ironhide to set the mech on the table and checked the duty roster. ::Wheelie?::

::Yeah, boss?:: Their newest Autobot's reply was almost immediate. He was off-duty, but obviously hadn't been recharging.

::Could you come to med bay? I need someone small.::

::Sure. Epps is kicking my ass at Soulcalibur anyway. Be right there.::

Ratchet couldn't help but smile to himself. Wheelie was painfully young, still, but the Decepticon had washed off him nicely. Once they'd gotten it through his head that asking him to work wasn't punishment but an opportunity, he'd showed a ferocious determination to prove himself. Ratchet had found the kid to be smart and creative and had taken to employing him in the med bay whenever he needed an extra pair of small hands. Wheelie had surprised him by taking immediately to the detailed work. He'd told Ratchet once that he liked the job because it was important but always different, so he didn't get bored. Ratchet had fond hopes that once that youthful restlessness burned out, Wheelie would train up into a solid medic.

A few minutes later, Wheelie's tiny truck form zipped in. He whistled as he accelerated across the floor and transformed to stand by Ratchet's foot. "Who's the new guy? What's wrong with him?"

"We're not sure," Ratchet said, as Wheelie climbed up the table leg and flipped up onto the top. Ratchet attached a data cable to a datapad and handed the terminal end to Wheelie. "We need to get a cable in him, but his ports are all tucked in his undercarriage."

"Gotcha. Two small hands to the rescue." Wheelie beamed up at him and scuttled underneath the car with the cable trailing behind him. "I see 'em...I think...no wait, not like that...fuck, fragging...how about...yeah...just a biiiiiit...there!"

The datapad's screen flickered as it connected. Ratchet cycled through the medical access codes until the mech's OS accepted one of them (an extremely old one, oddly enough) and allowed him access. Vitals and status reports streamed across the screen. Ratchet started a diagnostic for hostile code.

Wheelie crawled back out and mimed dusting off his hands. "Tight fit. Anything else I can do, boss?"

::Our guest is perfectly fine, physically. I'm checking his code now.:: Ratchet said to Ironhide and Optimus. Then, to Wheelie, "Get an energon feed ready. If he checks out, he'll need fifty units."

"Fifty! Man, he's been busy." Wheelie trotted around the car to leap up and uncoil the feedline hanging down from the wall.

The datapad beeped, its diagnostic finished. ::No hostile programs, and the rest of his code is clean. Suspiciously so, even.::

Ironhide, who'd moved to the side, weapons still at half-charge, shifted on his feet. ::How so?::

::Just that. His code's practically pristine. No patches, no workarounds, nothing corrupted. No wear and tear at all. His logs might be a different story. I don't know if they've been tampered with or corrupted, but they only start about an hour ago.::

::Strange. Could he have been hacked?:: Optimus asked.

::Possible. Soundwave is still unaccounted for. Perhaps he was captured and escaped.:: Ratchet hesitantly punctuated that thought with a glyph for reasonable doubt. There were too many things out of place here. He didn't like it. Ratchet tapped a finger against the table as he thought.

::Or he was released,:: Ironhide pointed out. ::Perhaps he's a Decepticon mole.::

::Either option doesn't explain his oddly human physical characteristics,:: Optimus pointed out.

::Maybe the humans made the body and the Decepticons transferred a spark over and _then_ wiped him to be a mole.:: Ironhide suggested.

Ratchet and Optimus were silent, until Ironhide said defensively, ::Well, it's all _I_ can think of.::

Ratchet made a decision. ::Sir, requesting permission to access his memory core at medical access level 1.::

Optimus was silent for a long moment. He took such invasions of privacy just as seriously as Ratchet did. His response was formal, ::Your justification, Chief Medical Officer?::

::Primary, safety of our personnel: determine that the patient is not a threat to current personnel prior to reactivation. Secondary, patient welfare: determine if his logs are corrupted, since that corruption could spread if I reactivate him without dealing with the error.:: Those two would be enough to satisfy them both, but just for completeness' sake, Ratchet paused, then continued. ::Tertiary, ally welfare: determine what contact, if any, the patient has had with Mikaela Banes and if he has any information about her immediate welfare.::

"Uh...Ironhide, Ratchet?" Wheelie's voice was uncharacteristically serious, and Ratchet looked down. Wheelie came around the side of the unconscious mech, looking at his hands. "I just noticed...the color of his paint hides it pretty well, but... He's got blood on him." Wheelie rubbed his small fingers together and then held them up. "Human blood."

Ironhide growled, his weapons charging to full.

Ratchet grimly sent a databurst of the last ten seconds to Optimus, who responded a click later with, ::Permission granted. Use full precautions. Be careful, Ratchet.::

::Affirmative.:: Ratchet replied, optics shuttering as he brought up his sandboxing programs and firewalls to maximum security. He only half-listened as Optimus opened the channel fully to Bumblebee, giving him permission to break whatever traffic laws necessary to get to Mikaela's shop as soon as possible.

Ironhide's silent ping skated across Ratchet's awareness. There were no words, just a reminder that he was there and two glyphs: one for "cautious concern" and one for "justified confidence". It was, Ratchet knew, Ironhide-speak for _I'm worried, but I know you can do it_.

Ratchet pinged him back with the familiar response: glyphs for "partial negation" and "self-defense subroutine". _Don't worry about me. Watch your own back._

Ratchet dialed down his comms as Optimus finished filling Bumblebee in on the situation. The silence lasted for a long second before Ratchet pulled the data cable out of the pad and plugged it into his own port.

The mystery mech's firewalls were, like everything about him, odd. They weren't weak, merely...predictable. Defaults, Ratchet realized with a shock. It was enough to make him pause, searching for and unarchiving a memory to compare with...yes. The mech's firewalls were exactly the same as a few newly-sparked sparklings Ratchet had treated so very long ago. Somehow, the ease with which Ratchet was able to circumvent those nominal barriers made the whole invasive process-never Ratchet's favorite thing-all the more distasteful.

He was on the defensive as soon as the firewalls were breached, but nothing attacked. The only chatter was the background hum of the mech's OS murmuring to itself. Ratchet swiftly called up the mech's memory files and found them, unsurprisingly, incredibly strange. There was a solid block of files with timestamps that matched the mech's logs, but there were other files as well, positioned to be readable but of oddly small filesizes for the referenced dates, which reached back roughly twenty human years.

Ratchet was getting a very bad feeling about this.

The medic copied all of the available memory files in a matter of seconds and retreated from the mech's core. He popped out the data cable from his port, sent a brief string of "complete success" "no threat" and "searching, please wait for reply" glyphs to the others. He played the copied files from the last hour.

::_Primus_.::

Ratchet, very carefully, played back only the most recent of the archived files. It read both flat and overstimulated at the same time, the sensory details limited but intense. Ratchet startled at the shotgun blast and had to use every bit of his training to watch the rest of the file with a medic's dispassionate analysis.

Multiple questioning pings came over the comm link.

Ratchet opened his optics. ::I think that this mech holds Mikaela's memories-::

::...WHAT?::

Ratchet couldn't even discern who that had been. :Bumblebee, scan Mikaela's shop as soon as you are in range, particularly the garage. Do not panic-::

::I'm in range...scanning...::

::-as you might find-::

::NO!:: Bumblebee's agonized cry made Ratchet feel even worse. He leaned on the table in front of him, feeling suddenly, crushingly old. Damn overachieving youngsters.

Bumblebee sent a burst of information: his scans of the garage, complete with signs of forced entry, the open garage door, and one room-temperature female-shaped human body on the floor. With, Ratchet noted, a powerful, familiar information signature nearly on top of it, though he could tell by Bumblebee's hurried notations that he was not fully understanding its import.

Ratchet sent a hurried, heavily-encrypted message to Optimus. He couldn't include the memories themselves for confidentiality reasons, but he bundled up his summary, his response, his analysis, his suspicions, and also his concern that they might damage their relationship with the humans if this was handled badly-

::Bumblebee, halt. This may not be what it looks like.:: Optimus replied.

::But sir, MIKAELA-::

::HALT.:: With a side glyph of "absolute command authority".

Bumblebee's reply wasn't even vocalized, just a faint, miserable affirmative, followed by a set of coordinates verifying his position at the end of Mikaela's block.

::Ratchet, revive...revive our guest.::

"Wheelie, attach the feed. Quickly." Ratchet started a calming defrag as Wheelie hopped to obey, even though he was out of the comm loop and had no idea what was going on. Ratchet reached up and over to the valve, and at Wheelie's "Done, boss!", he started the energon flow. He clicked the data line back into the datapad and gave the reactivation command as soon as the mech's (Ratchet dared not use another name, even in his thoughts, he really didn't) tanks were full enough to allow it.

Ratchet watched as the datapad chronicled the reboot in scrolled code. It was clean, and the automatic internal scans came back error-free, merely noting the medical incursions and Ratchet's designation.

More scrolled logs as the mech's processor came back online, querying its OS in confusion, EM sensors coming online, and then-

"Oh, man, am I glad to see you guys." That voice was familiar. Slightly different, for being filtered through a Cybertonian vocalizer rather than a human voicebox, but familiar.

Wheelie started, turning toward..._her_. Her. "Is...hey, is that..."

"Hey, Wheelie. Yeah, it's me."

Ratchet said softly, "Mikaela. How do you feel?"

"Like I'm having the weirdest night ever. But good...considering I think I died a bit ago. Did I die a bit ago?"

"It is entirely possible," Ratchet replied. He certainly had no other explanation.

"Great. Well, at least I got better." Her voice wavered just a bit, though her tone was one Ratchet recognized as determination. He remembered the look on her face that usually accompanied it: teeth gritted, jaw set, eyebrows lowered, eyes steady. "Ironhide, could you...ease off a bit, maybe? You're giving me all kinds of threat errors that I really don't know how to deal with."

Ironhide just harrumphed and powered down his cannons, which he'd probably forgotten about. Most mechs wouldn't have been able to recognize the look in Ironhide's optics as extreme relief.

"Thanks, 'Hide."

"Died? What..." Wheelie put a hand on..._Mikaela's_ tire. "Warrior Goddess? Is this really...you?"

"Yeah. Really, really me. Hey, stand back, will you? I'm going to try to transform. I'm tired of not being able to look anyone in the eye."

"Take it slowly." Ratchet advised softly. "Can you transform without dislodging the data cable?"

"The what? Oh. That's what that is. Uh...yeah, I think so."

Wheelie ran to the edge of the table, bouncing up and down on his toes, and Mikaela vocalized what sounded like a human taking a deep breath.

It was not the prettiest transformation ever, but then first transformations rarely were. She got stuck twice, once at the beginning, when her torso needed to bend to allow her limbs to emerge, and once nearly at the end, when something in her hands (relatively small and delicate for her framesize, Ratchet noted) ground unpleasantly, but each time there was a muttered curse, then a reversal followed by a successful sequence. She pushed herself up onto her knees on the table, then tried, awkwardly, to move to a sitting position. Ratchet steadied her by the shoulders, keeping one eye on the datapad and noting with satisfaction her proper swift queries to calibrate her gyros and stabilizers.

Physically, she looked fine. Her frame was fairly standard, but she would be, Ratchet calculated, perhaps of a size with Sideswipe, if not a little heavier. Her base configuration was for dexterity rather than power, but her frame was solid enough to support a soldier's armor and weapons, should she need them. With her processor, she'd have her pick of upgrades, really.

"Wow, that's really weird," Mikaela muttered, "It's like my own personal roller coaster." Her hands gripped Ratchet's arms and then didn't let go. Her head came up, and her optics were blue, her face not human but nonetheless human-shaped and incredibly expressive, made of small overlapping plates that gave her a flexibility that Ratchet had not seen inbuilt in a long time.

Mikaela smiled, _bit her lip_ as she always did when she was uncertain, and said, "Thanks. I'm really glad to see you."

"I am glad to see you, as well. You had us worried." Ratchet gently unhooked the data cable, coiling it and setting the datapad aside. Certainly not to cover how relieved he was. Certainly not.

Ratchet realized he'd been ignoring the comm and was relieved to see that Bumblebee was just sending faint, wordless glyphs for thankful joy, over and over. Ironhide, the softspark, had been streaming the whole thing.


End file.
